Single Scars
by Pyrex Shards
Summary: Phoebe Johansen wanted to jump up and crawl across the conference table to Helga, shake her, and yell 'ARNOLD IS DEAD' as loud as she possibly could. Content rating changed to T from M because I hate M. The chapters will be updated soon to reflect this.
1. One in Six

Single Scars

a Hey Arnold fanfic series by Pyrex Shards

beta-read by Lord Malachite and Jae B.

A/N: This could be considered like Single Stitches in a way. I only plan on updating this when I feel like it. This allows me to keep focused on Pink Ribbon and Bluebird without holding myself to yet another schedule. Pink Ribbon is still my top priority.

I am separating these stories from Single Stitches because Single Scars is going to be dark, and I am rating it M because of that. These stories will be interrelated in plot, but each story will not be presented in a linear fashion. They will jump around in time.

WARNING: This series of stories is not for the faint of heart. It can and will be considered disturbing. If the darker side of the human condition is not something you like to read about, please do not read this fanfic series.

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"One in Six"

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It was the eighth anniversary of Arnold's death. I sat in my high rise penthouse, drinking Patron Silver tequila. I could afford it so I indulged. Strewn out all around me on my living room floor were newspaper clippings, candid photographs from grade school that Arnold never knew I took, and yearbook pages with his face enclosed in hearts drawn with pink markers.

For that night, unlike the previous seven, I even had torn pages of my poetry books amongst the photographic litter around me. Those books didn't know what they had coming when I tore the pages out of them. I only tore out the deepest, most precious prose to my love. The ones that stood out, the ones that I can recite from memory to this day because they were imprinted on my heart long ago.

Outside of my apartment were the skyscrapers of Hillwood, and somewhere down there beneath the orange glow was his true resting place. Not his tomb, but block upon block of urban memorial to his life; the old neighborhood. It doesn't rain on the anniversary of Arnold's death. It never rains. So I could see it all in the patterns of the street lamps that dotted the crisscrossing streets. A little slice of the world that he fought so hard to maintain with his own blood. An iron red paint that stained the sidewalk that I saw in my nightmares.

In those nightmares I hovered over his body trying to put the blood back in with my hands while the paparazzi swarmed around taking pictures of the scene. But I was powerless. This world in which I was a powerful woman, but I was unable to will even a single drop of that precious crimson liquid into my love's body.

From where I sat on the light-blue carpet of my living room, I could see my company's headquarters, the biggest building in the entire Hillwood cityscape, Pataki Tower. It was an icon, a glass and steel symbol of my rise to power and wealth, and infamy.

They, those millions of souls out there, only knew about Helga Geraldine Pataki, CEO of Pataki Corporation, billionaire, destroyer of businesses, the queen of hostile takeovers, rumored alcoholic and nymphomaniac, mistress of married men. A playgirl with an expensive Aston Martin parked in the garage of a summer mansion.

They didn't know about the boxes of pictures and books in my closet, within the innermost sanctum of my penthouse. It was a hidden shrine cataloging the deeds of the man whom I fought against nine years ago in a court of law because my business needed space for a warehouse. They were photographic and literary manifestations of that stupid football head and his hold on me, even in death.

Covering my body as I sat cross-legged on the floor was the most expensive wedding dress money could buy. I smiled while at the bridal shop when the seamstress took the measurements because my thoughts were lost in a haze of imagining Arnold beside me in a tuxedo, holding my hand. The tabloids held full color pictures on the front pages the next day. "Helga getting married!?"

But the dress, snow white and form fitting, with all the standard trimming, what I felt Arnold would want to see in a bridal dress, was for another purpose. It was all part of my plan. In my lap I held a Colt Python Three-Fifty-Seven revolver, with six chambers, and a single bullet.

I thumbed the safety off and on, again and again, and repeated in my head, "My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return." How poetic, how very poetic. I loved saying it as I sat there, one hand on the gun, and the other clutching the old locket hanging around my neck.

I would separate my life from my body with a bullet, my body would collapse against the pictures and the poetry. For once everyone would know. Without Arnold my life was empty. I was walking dead for eight years. My soul died with Arnold, and I would join him in the ground, and everyone would know.

The tabloids would print the scene, a permanent record of a successful woman laying lifeless, crimson stained poetry matching the color of her lipstick, and her photographic shrine resting underneath her body, a spent bullet casing and a hole where her heart was, only making tangible what already existed behind the illusion. They would print "Billionaire seductress dead from suicide! Was in love with long-dead enemy!"

CNN and MSNBC would have a field day. Analysts would over-analyze and politicians would politicize. A movie would be made. Pataki Corporation would survive but would never be what it once was, but I didn't give two shits about that. An empire without an empress is but an empty shell.

Everyone would see the love I had for Arnold. It would all be very surreal. Arnold would live in the minds of millions for a brief moment in time, and I would be free.

I spun the chambers of the double-action revolver and clicked the safety off and on again. Concealed carry permits were never intended for this, I knew. A solo game of Russian roulette has but a few simple rules. One bullet, six chambers, you have to spin the chambers and hold the gun up to your head, then pull the trigger.

Russian roulette was the poetic way to do it. A dance with oblivion eternal, where death would decide the right time. I would give his messenger my heart first, modifying the game slightly. The men with the cameras and the women with the microphones would only see the picture I painted. They would see the end result of the play as I had written it. In reality I would pull the trigger six times in rapid succession so it would only look like a dance. I would laugh at death and piss him off, deny him the standard contract, that's how a Pataki does it.

I sat the gun down beside me, safety on, of course, then picked up my shot glass and the bottle of tequila. I poured myself one last shot, and drank it down fast. I picked up the gun again, spun the chamber, and thumbed the safety. I wondered, would I hear the gun go off as the bullet tore through my heart? Would I finally get a chance to see the hole that I knew was there before I collapsed?

Into the dark void of the outside world I looked, as I held the cold metal barrel up to my chest, over my heart, careful to keep from scratching my old locket that I gently clutched aside with my other hand. I couldn't help but notice that my hands were still. From the alcohol, perhaps. I was ready. I would go through with it.

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return." I chanted, putting pressure on the trigger with my thumb.

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return."

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return."

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return." I could hear a click inside the gun as the hammer pulled back and the chambers rotated around.

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return." One last breath as I closed my eyes. I willed my heart to still and wait patiently for its destruction. "Calm now little girl. It's almost over."

"My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return." My voice quieted to a whisper. One last time, "My love spilled his blood for everyone, I will give him mine in return..."

Click....

Click....

Click....

Click....

Click....

....Click

Six pulls of the trigger, and my heart was still beating, my skin unbroken, blood still coursing through my veins in rhythm. I could hear its life-sustaining rush in my ears, warm with tequila and estrogen. It was taunting me. I inhaled deeply. My own life, taunting me. Imagine that. I opened my eyes and lowered the gun to my lap, then looked up to see the bullet still resting on the coffee table, its brass casing gleaming in the subdued light.

Perhaps I didn't want to die... Did I?

...Or maybe Arnold didn't want my blood.


	2. Eulogy Part 1

Single Scars

A Hey Arnold fanfic series by Pyrex Shards

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"Eulogy - Part 1"

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The leather desk chair spun around again, and again, in a slow dance while its occupant sat studying a glass of red wine in her hand. If one had witnessed this and had a stopwatch, they would have counted around a minute in time between each complete revolution of the creaky wood and leather chair. The occupant was thinking slow, calm, deep thoughts. The kicking of her foot kept the time for her brain, but it was doing a poor job. Rhythmic movements of the liquid in the wine glass seemed to work better, and helped take the edge off of the darker threads that wove and unwound in her mind.

The nineteen-year-old woman studied the light saliva glaze on the glass of the stemware from where her lips had touched the rim. She swirled the liquid around with a slight tilt of her fingers, then took another sip of the deep red and very vintage Shiraz. It was bottled in nineteen eighty eight; the year of a personal epoch. It was the year she first opened her eyes on the world as Helga G. Pataki. She sighed.

Sometimes she wondered if deep within her subconscious lied a memory, some untapped engram that contained the faint and hazy image of the tiled ceiling in the hospital room, and her mother and her father looking down at her. She wondered if she could somehow remember those first moments, when her brain began to form her identity outside of her mother's womb while she took in her first whimpering gasps of air. Then perhaps she could have traveled back to the very beginning of her time and figure out what the hell she did to deserve this...

Her late-father's business, Big Bob's Beepers, now belonged to her.

She took another glance around the cluttered excuse for an office. All of it was illuminated by cheap overhead florescent lights that did little to change the mood of the shadows that seemed to borrow all their personality from the dark and hazy night outside. They were her companion in that space, where a little under two weeks ago her father collapsed from a fatal stroke. One moment he arose from his throne as the beeper king, to listen to the complaints of another unsatisfied subject out on the sales floor, and then departed the world with a thud on the dirty tile beneath her feet. Or at least that's how she imagined it. She heard witness accounts and just filled them in with the imagery of her heavyset asshole of a father, getting up and then falling dead. The very chair she spun on had been propelled backward from the force of the fall and hit the wall behind where she now sat down engaging in a little underage drinking.

It didn't faze her too much that she sat in the very chair that her father spent his last minutes in. It didn't bother her that within this room her father took his last breaths of air. Quite frankly she was surprised it didn't happen sooner. The man didn't take care of himself. He lived his vices out, and in the end those vices killed him. Wooptee fucking doo. She couldn't feel sorry for him. It wasn't as if she felt he deserved it necessarily, for she had a sneaking suspicion he did. It wasn't as if she wished death upon her father, or she would have personally tripped him down the stairs of their house ages ago. No. Helga just didn't give a shit about her father. Didn't care one bit. In fact the long living void in her heart where her father should have been was filled with relief that he would no longer call her Olga. She would no longer be a victim to his comparisons of her "perfect" and "award winning" sister.

But the one thing that pissed her off the most was the shock that his Will contained. After he had cut up little slivers of his material life and left those to friends and relatives, she got the biggest slice. The last thing in the world that was so very, very precious to him, his beeper empire in Washington State, now belonged to her:

_To the capable hands of my youngest daughter, Helga Geraldine, I leave my company._

Capable hands?

Helga took a lingering sip of the wine. Capable hands? Bob knew next to nothing about her, let alone any capable hands she may have possessed. To Big Bob, Helga was just an obstacle to a perfect family. She knew that deep down and she had long ago accepted her father's opinion of her. Then he had to go and will his company to her, as if somehow, all along, he had trusted her implicitly with the future of this mangy little cellular phone company with beeper in the title just because the name stuck.

She hated him, she hated the company, and as she looked around at the stacks upon stacks of papers and contracts that littered the shelves, she wondered how many calories of flame the office possessed. Would it burn hot enough to consume the whole building and would it take enough time to allow her to escape suspicion of the authorities?

A thorough and cleansing flame was what she wanted to do to the entire venture the first moment she narrowed her eyes at the greasy looking attorney who recited her father's wishes concerning his company, verbatim, in the audience of her family and their closest acquaintances. Everything had to burn, she resolved to herself when she walked out of that cramped little attorney's office. It all had to incinerate if she would get release from her father's shadow and the hurt that her father had subjected her to.

She sat in the trashy throne room of his empire and sipped on a bottle of wine she found in one of the cabinets along the wall as she rummaged around for more skeletons to justify her mission. Helga sat her foot down firmly on the ground to stop her movement in the chair and stared at the uncorked dark green bottle sitting on the scratched, paper covered desk. It had collected dust and cobwebs, and she wondered why it was there and why he had it; why it had a little red bow tied to its neck with a yellowing little card attached that said "_Congratulations Mr. Pataki_!"

It didn't matter really. From what she could tell from her few experiences with wine, this living thing that smelled of faint fruit and alcohol was on its way out. She could tell it was almost gone from the moment she took the first sip. Grape and tannin clashed with slight notes of death. Somewhere beyond the fruit she could taste vinegar that had made its way in slowly through a rotten cork. It was truly an odd wine but somehow it fit, being the same age as her. So it became an unwitting companion, saved from the fire that would soon engulf this place, this symbol of Big Bob's flawed existence, his business, his mistress that he held above all else, including his family

Her eyes flicked down to the drawers of his desk. Helga had faint memories of sitting in that very chair years ago. Her feet couldn't reach the ground and she remembered sitting in there during the summer after first grade, watching her father through the windows as he haggled with a customer or waved his arms around at an employee while she tried to read the first chapter of _Moby Dick_ or the last chapter of _Gone with the Wind_.

Such was the relationship with her father. She frowned when she remembered her little hands reaching out for the nearest desk drawer only to be scolded by her father not to go rummaging through other peoples stuff.

A smile graced her lips. There was nothing stopping her now. The ghost of her father was impotent and couldn't harm her, couldn't scold her. He couldn't shoo her arm away and use her perfect sister as an example of how little girls are supposed to act. Everything in the desk belonged to her anyway.

"Hey Bob!" She sat the half empty wine glass down by the bottle and yelled into the air, hoping to disturb the phantom of her father that possibly lurked in the corners of the paperwork. "I'm opening your desk drawers and there's nothing you can do to stop me." She reached down to the handle. "Ya hear me. How's this for a proper little girl!"

She pulled on the handle and the door slid open with the tell-tale friction of wood against wood. She peered in. The first thing she saw was a handgun. How typical. The office had an alarm system but she imagined Big Bob felt he needed the protection with all the customers he suckered into impossible contracts with fine print that literally handed over the soul of their wallets to him.

Underneath that there were pencils, candy wrappers, bent paperclips, and an impressive collection of loose yellow post-it notes decorated with numbers in blue pen. She arched an eyebrow at her father's suspect mathematical genius. There were far too many scratched out numbers for her liking.

She shut the drawer and reached for the next one down. This one opened much like the same, though it seemed a little stuck it came lose when pulled up and out. Inside were some old and probably broken beepers that never got thrown out along with the skeletal remains of cell phones. It was like a menagerie of keypads and broken screens. She could only imagine this was her father's idea of warranty repair or possibly cell phones he had personally smashed in one of his temper tantrums. The king of beepers did have his moments from time to time where he threw fits like a baby when he didn't get his way.

She closed that drawer and reached for its oversized companion at the bottom of the desk, but when she pulled, it didn't budge. Helga furrowed her brow at the lock beside the handle, and mumbled a curse under her breath.

She huffed, reached for the wine glass, downed the rest of the completely insane tasting yet desirable red liquid, then reached for the bottle and poured another glass. Already she could feel the sway in her head, and the odd feeling behind her eyes while the alcohol took effect and lulled bunches of neurons in her head into a stupor. It dulled that little voice in the back of her mind that screamed for her not to do this. It was that little girl inside that had to be muffled for this to work.

She reached into her pocket and wrapped her hands around the matches. Now or never. Better make quick work of it. But that damn memory persisted in her mind. Six or seven years old, bored as hell, reaching for the drawer at the bottom of the desk and getting in trouble for trying to open it.

Why did it persist in her mind? Why would she even care? She knew why. It was there and it was taunting her. Helga G. Pataki was not one to be toyed with. The drawer would suffer her wrath. She reached her hands under the surface of the desk and felt around while she thought of where her father would hide such a key. There was only one key, to the front door, that she had been given along with the code to de-activate the alarm system. None of her father's personal effects had such a small key.

She growled in frustration and looked around the office. It would be impossible to conduct such a search within even half an hour, the office was such a wreck, so she decided right then that brute force would suffice.

Helga stood up and grabbed the front of the desk with her hands, then pulled up on it, causing the rickety desk to fall forward. The wine bottle and glass shattered against paper as it all came crashing to the floor, and the sickening thwack sound echoed through the office. She winced slightly then shrugged it off. It wouldn't matter anyway since the entire place was going to burn down.

Sapphire eyes studied the bottom of the drawer as she crouched down to look at the way the drawer slid into its place in the desk. She could do something to break it free from the desk, she knew. Helga stood up and looked around, and smiled as her gaze settled upon a set of golf clubs sitting in a corner. Or she could smash a hole in the side of the desk. She walked over to the golf clubs and inspected each one like a golfer picking out the right one for a shot, before wrapping her fingers around the heaviest, most menacing looking club.

Nine-iron in both hands, Helga walked back to the desk. This was going to be fun. This was payback.

"Four!" she yelled as golf club connected with wood. The old wood in the desk gave way to splinters, as the nine-iron embedded itself into the side, but it didn't quite have the intended effect, so Helga swung again.

And again. Pieces of wood flew, and she could even hear pieces hit the wall.

She swung again. The vibrations from the contact with the desk followed up her arm and tickled her spine. It was a satisfying feeling and it urged her on.

After a few more swings, she had made a large enough hole in the side of the desk where she could snake her hands into the dark void of the desk drawer and see what was inside. The girl threw the nine-iron aside and got on her knees.

The first thing she felt when she stuck her hand in were the metal spines of a few notebooks. There was nothing too major about typical office supplies. The hole was too small to pull them through without tearing them. They were probably just lists anyway, some type of antiquated accounting system. Helga let go of the notebooks and felt around some more. Her eyebrow arched in puzzlement. Besides the notebooks, there didn't seem to be anything else in there. She grabbed the leg of the desk with her other hand and pushed her arm in a little deeper while she felt around the inside of the drawer. When she angled her arm to feel around the back of the drawer, her fingers brushed against something glossy. Her hand stopped on the object and she moved her fingers around to feel what it was. Then she realized what exactly it was. It fit the physical description.

Helga pinched a side of the photograph in-between two fingers and slowly removed her hand from the hole. The paper was yellow on the back with the word Kodak printed in a pattern.

Then she turned the photograph around…

It was a picture of her father, with the goofiest looking grin on his face. His hair was just beginning to gray and he was still relatively thin. On his shoulders sat small legs that he had a hold of with his arms. Just above his still brown head of hair was another, very young face. It was the same face that Helga saw when she looked in the mirror each morning.

It was her.

And she was smiling.

"_Again daddy!"_

"_Okay Girl. Where now?"_

"_The kitchen! The kitchen!"_

Helga's breath stilled. Her mind came to a halt while she studied the image in detail. Finally she closed her eyes and shook her head. What was that picture doing in a locked drawer in her late-fathers office?

She looked at the hole in the side of the desk. Her mind was awash with alcohol, impossibilities, and the stirrings of denial. She felt around inside of the drawer again, and then held her teeth tighter together when she discovered yet another photograph amongst the notebooks.

What greeted her when she withdrew her hand and looked at the newly discovered photograph shocked her even more. It was her in the picture. She had her arms crossed and she was scowling at the camera. On top her head sat the pair of Mickey Mouse ears that she let fly out of the car on their return trip back from Disneyland.

"_Trust me girl. One of these days you'll look back on this and smile."_

"_I don't want to smile, and I don't want this stupid hat."_

"_Hey there missy, I paid good money for that hat and you're gonna wear it."_

Suddenly she remembered bits and pieces of that trip when she was seven. The embarrassment she felt at her father's insistence that she have a good time. Somehow an embarrassing photo was a good time.

But… Why? Why was this picture in a locked drawer just like the other? What was going on?

She formed questions with her lips, shook her head, placed the photograph down by its companion, and reached into the drawer again. This time Helga's came across a loose stack of photographs along one corner. Time slowed. What was happening here? What was this? She withdrew her hand again and looked at the small collection of photographs.

The first one being…

The fourth grade performance of Romeo and Juliet. After the play actually, when big bob had taken a picture. Helga remembered the flash going off, but she had been too distracted by other things, by other sensations she felt, to find the person who had taken the photograph.

In the photo a very young Juliet scowled at the group around her, frozen in a moment of time where she was obviously saying "Criminey!" to someone. Her mouth was half open while phoebe stood to her side looking off somewhere wistfully.

Helga moved around on her legs and fell back slowly to brace her back against the desk. The solid mass of wood didn't scoot an inch. Slowly she took the picture and moved it to the back of the stack to reveal another picture of her. It was sixth grade, she could tell by the features in her face that stared back at her, the oily sheen on her forehead that seemed to plague her adolescence, and the braces over her teeth. That day she had come home from the dentist. Her father had taken a picture as soon as she closed the door and turned around to face the stairs.

"_Criminey Bob! What did ya do that for!?"_

"_Pipe down Olga. I paid good money for those braces and I want this memory to last."_

"_I didn't want these braces."_

"_You'll wear them and you'll like them!"_

Curiosity plagued her mind. She flipped to yet another photograph.

The day they all went to the state fair when she was only four or five. Helga had a huge bag of cotton candy. They were next to the ticket booth. Bob was kneeling at her side, showing her how to eat the candy.

"_You just pinch a little off like this and eat it. Like this... There you go girl. You'll get the hang of it in no time."_

"_Thank you daddy."_

Another picture.

The grand opening of that very store. Bob had Helga in his hands, coaxing her to cut the red ribbon in front of the door.

"_Criminey Bob, you don't need to hold me up."_

"_This is a perfect photo op Olga, don't ruin it."_

"…_Did you just call me Olga?" _

It was then that her hands started shaking very minutely. She couldn't control the involuntary movement of her muscles that made physical her nervousness as she flipped through picture after picture. Finally she found the last picture in the bunch, and everything froze, even the air around her.

Prom night. Helga had gone alone, but Bob insisted that she descend the stairs as if she had a date. There she was in the picture, on the stairs, in a pink prom dress with her hair done up in a single ponytail. Quite frankly it was embarrassing. She wanted so much for the person at the bottom of the stairs to be Arnold, not Big Bob with an expensive looking camera.

She wanted Arnold to see her and have second thoughts about taking Nadine to the prom while his puberty ridden mind imagined taking her dress off. Instead she got Big Bob and a flash in the face.

She never got to see the photo. She hadn't wondered where it had gone, so embarrassing the moment was that she had put it all out of her mind.

But here it was, in the smashed drawer of her late-fathers desk. All these pictures were of her. A tear hit the scuffed tile between her legs and she inhaled a rickety breath. She brought her hand up to her forehead and shook her head. She whispered. "Why?"

She knew, never would she get the answer. Somehow she knew then what she had dreaded. She knew what she didn't want to know. It was staring back at her in these photographs that her father had stashed away in a locked drawer.

_To the capable hands of my youngest daughter, Helga Geraldine, I leave my demons._

Helga placed a palm to the ground and stood up on wobbly feet, an after effect from the old wine. These pictures in her hand, they… They… Angered her.

She took one of the photographs, of her riding a Shetland pony, crumpled it up in her hands, and threw it against a wall.

The cotton candy picture suffered a similar fate.

The Mickey Mouse ears got a clean tear into two pieces, right down the middle of her face.

Other pictures ended up as minute pieces of confetti while she paced around the room picking them apart.

Juliet became stained with wine on the floor that took the pattern of a shoe sole.

Finally she landed on the last picture, the prom picture, and her hands shook. She wanted to tear it in two. She wanted to spit on it and throw it in the trash. She wanted it to be the very tender that started the fire which would consume the entire shithole of a store.

But instead she let that picture fall to the floor intact. It fell against the papers that settled on the floor after she toppled the desk.

Helga looked around the empty space and held her hands out. "Bob? Why? Why are you doing this to me?"

Her tone wavered and she curled her hands into fists. "Listen to me you bastard! You asshole! LISTEN TO ME!"

She listened, to the silence. And she yelled again at the top of her lungs, a blood curdling scream. "LISTEN TO ME!"

Her chest rose and fell with her breath. She looked around, hoping to see movement; something to confirm that her dead father was listening. "Y-you never cared! But what's this I see? What are these, these photographs to you huh!?"

She twirled around. "You asshole listen to me. Listen to your daughter. H E L G A!"

She looked down and kicked against the desk, smashing papers into the wood as she did so. "I hate you! And this," she reached down and picked up the prom picture. "Don't you dare think this'll change that do you hear me!?"

Helga fell to her knees in front of the mess on the floor and dropped the photo. Nimble hands grasped at the book of matches that she withdrew from her pocket. She opened the book and tore at one of the little cardboard matches, then struck it between the book folds. Flame illuminated her face and she picked up the prom photo. It would be the first thing to go. She held the match to the bottom corner. Flame licked the photo and began to devour it, spreading like a living thing up the side, and then slowly across.

She cursed under her breath when the flame on the match bit at her fingers and she blew it out. The flame started across the only picture of her prom. She had thrown away the dress the day after, resolving that Arnold would never see it. He didn't even notice her at the prom.

Helga held her hand out to light the pile of papers but stopped. Across the back of the photo were faint words in blue pen. She saw them a split second before they were consumed by the fire eating the memory of her father.

_My girl's prom._

The young blonde woman closed her eyes and dropped the photo beside her. The flame finished consuming the rest of the blackened photo, and burned out, leaving a thin sheet of carbon ash on the tile. She sat in silence.

Those pictures were for her father. They were never for her.

Tears threatened around the periphery of moistened blue yes. She felt warmth, made tangible by the wine in her belly and ashes beside her.

The ghost of her dad was in those papers, in those photos, in every shard of that broken Shiraz bottle. She couldn't see but she could feel it. There he was in the shadows of the office. He lived in the spilled wine that soaked through the papers. She had consumed the very same wine, in an unwilling ceremony, taking the soul of his business into herself and assuring her place as the "Beeper Queen."

Bob hadn't planned this so soon, but pieces of fate, like the photographic confetti around the floor, fell into place. It all led to Helga.

Her eyes fell to the wall behind the desk, just over its edge. She spoke softly. "This was all for me wasn't it."

She could hear whispers in the silence, the ringing in her ears.

"Ever since I was that little girl, sitting on your shoulders… I guess you really did love me. But what am I supposed to do about it. You see, I still hate you dad. Nothing is going to change that."

She looked to the side and studied another wall. "Is that what you wanted all along? We Pataki's are strong? Some problems are best swept under the rug? I remember those lessons, I took them into this faulty heart of mine, and look where I am now. Sitting in your office, unwilling to set it ablaze. You and I both know I'm going to walk out of this place and come in on Monday morning to assume my role in this business, because I am weak, just like you. Like father, like daughter."

"If you wanted Pataki strength in your lineage dad then, you got it." She stood up and idly kicked the papers. "I am strong yet I am weak. I am what you wanted me to be. Just like you. All scars on the outside, a hard shell, yet soft and pathetic on the inside, a weakling, a little snapping turtle."

She shook her head and whispered. "Just like you… I am truly weak… Just like you…" Helga twirled around, and with a long sweeping motion of her foot, kicked the wine stained paper with all the force she could find. Pieces flew up and fluttered around. Broken glass hit the wall while other pieces bounced off of the desk. It all left a trail of dark red liquid, like blood from a body dragged across a floor.

Helga straightened herself and walked to the door. She didn't turn around as she touched the door knob tentatively. She saw her reflection in the glass, and beyond that, the shadows in the paper that held the ghost of her dad. "I hate you. That will never change."

As she opened the door and turned off the light, she sighed and hugged herself with her arm. Before closing the door she whispered. "Goodbye Bob. See you Monday."

_To the capable hands of my youngest daughter, Helga Geraldine, I leave my legacy._

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	3. Drugged

Single Scars

a Hey Arnold fanfic series by Pyrex Shards

WARNING: This series of stories is not for the faint of heart. It can and will be considered disturbing. If the darker side of the human condition is not something you like to read about, please do not read this fanfic series. This story is being told asynchronously due to poetic license.

Additional warning: This chapter contains _the subject of _rape, however there is nothing graphic.

XXX

"Drugged"

XXX

The feeling that dwelled just under her surface while she swam on the very edge of consciousness was somewhere between gummy and bitter. Her skin felt like there were caterpillars with needles for legs crawling all over her body. At one point she was even able to count the number of legs. Each of them had twenty eight little needle things. Little pincers made of steel too. She saw them in the absolute dark for they had some weird blue glow and beady little red eyes.

Her mind dwelled on that for some stupid reason, theorizing what they were and why they were there. What we're they feeding on and when would they leave

She was so disconnected that each second seemed to pulse through her brain with her heartbeat. Every single blood vessel tingled. She swore at one point she'd had a conversation with her late father, but his disembodied voice was somewhere in the back of her mind.

And she had no control of her body. She couldn't move any muscles voluntarily.

She didn't know how long she laid there while her mind made room for a drug that she knew existed, but wished she didn't as soon as it hit her. And hit her it did.

Gradually the little caterpillar things dissolved into some kind of weird glittering dust that soaked into the ground and through the walls of the prison she made for herself to keep everyone out.

A headache was the first thing that assaulted her senses as muscles started to work. She blinked. The only thing she could see, as she picked herself up, was a pulsating light show coming from under the crevice of a door. The only sound she could hear was the constant thumping of some old trance song that only made her headache pulse in sync with it.

Thoughts started returning about why she was there. She guessed she should have been thankful that she remembered anything. She was in what she remembered to be some cramped, dingy janitorial closet in the hallway of TranceFixed, one of Hillwood's most popular dance clubs.

Helga slowly looked around in the dark as she lifted herself off of the floor. Her dress was sleeveless. She rubbed at a dull ache on her shoulder blade and she could feel the little bits of dirty grit that came off of the grille like indentations from where her shoulder came to rest on a floor drain. She sat up fully and dropped her hands to her lap.

The next thoughts that entered Helga's mind made her hope she was the only one that had been in the closet, for she remembered at that point why exactly she had chosen to shut herself inside such an unwelcoming place.

It was the strangest feeling but she knew it instantly. She had heard the warnings, and, well, a woman has to be prepared for these things. Still, she could have cursed herself for her stupidity. Someone ordered her a drink, but she was too distracted by something, she didn't remember what, and she didn't even think about where the drink had been or who had touched it.

It was some kind of schnapps drink, and it went down smooth. But no sooner had she finished it off, that a warm yet odd feeling crept up from her stomach. It wasn't nausea, but she began to feel dizzy, and the beats in the music that permeated the air started to slow, things started blurring, and she knew, someone had slipped a little something extra into her drink, to make Helga lose control of her body and give it to whomever wanted her.

She didn't know if it was the adrenaline that made her run for it, but she ran into the hallway and started for doors. To Her luck, she found a janitor's closet, fell in, and managed to fumble for the door.

The door! Had she locked the door? Did the door lock?

She lurched forward, fumbled around for the knob, and gave it a tentative turn. She breathed relief as the knob didn't budge, then brushed around it with her fingers and felt the tell-tale signs of an inset lock that she could turn with a thumb and index finger. She let go of the knob, thankful that somehow, she managed to lock the door.

But wasn't it just too convenient that she could lock the door herself. Panic set in again and she shot her arms out to explore her prison. Was anyone else in there, she felt around like a blind woman. There were cans of cleaner, a mop bucket, broom, and something furry that scattered away after her palm brushed against its tail. To think that she didn't even care of a rat in the space.

Well, rats couldn't rape her…

Rape…

Oh god.

She sat frozen in place as she mentally collected herself. She didn't feel odd, nothing seemed out of place. She felt around her dress. Nothing felt ripped. The dress wasn't creased or torn and there wasn't anything funny on the fabric other than grime from the floor. But her hands shook nonetheless. She hugged herself and curled up, smelling her arms and her dress. She couldn't smell anyone else on it, and she knew what men smelled like.

Then she slowly reached under her dress with one hand and gently felt her panties. They didn't seem out of place or bunched to one side.

And the last thing she did. The one thing that she never thought she'd ever have to do, was exploring her most intimate place to ensure that no one had done anything without her consent.

The panic faded away as she realized that there was a good chance she had made it to the closet and somehow managed to lock herself in. Or perhaps it was the grace of some higher power that the door happened to be cracked open but with the lock engaged, allowing her safe haven as one of the most horrible drugs she had ever experienced deprived her of control over her own body.

Helga inhaled a long, deep breath. "SHIT!"

She had been violated! Violated by that drug! Some called it a "date rape" pill, something that men of lesser moral fabric slipped into the drinks of women who were "asking for it."

Hadn't she been raped without being touched physically? Her blood ran cold. Someone was out there, right then, looking for their prize. Helga Geraldine Pataki. Billionaire. One thing was for sure, she decided as she sat there, this was the first and last time she would ever visit a club without a bodyguard. She let herself get angry; she wanted to smash things in that small space. To throw a temper tantrum would have been great. But there was no point.

She knew what the pamphlets said. She read them in the waiting room of her gynecologist. There was absolutely no justification for rape. No woman was ever "asking for it," no matter who they were. No man had the right to force himself onto her. She was her own castle.

But maybe she had been asking… she didn't know… she shook her head. No she wasn't. But…

Helga suddenly felt cold, so she drew up her legs and wrapped her arms around them, and at the contact with her skin she realized how short her little red dress really was. It barely registered as a dress. She felt naked at that point.

Naked, and violated.

She growled in frustration and shook her head. What had she done to deserve this? But, she didn't deserve it…

But someone felt that she did. And… Well…

Helga let the survivor in her kick in. It cooled her mind down and let her think over the adrenaline that took place of the drug as the last vestiges of its poison let go of her muscles. She realized it wouldn't have been a good idea to go out there. Why did she decide to go clubbing alone?

Oh yeah, that's right. She wanted to pick up a man and have a good time. Doi…

What good it did.

Helga felt around for the little white purse that accented her dress. Rhonda Lloyd would have been so proud of her for choosing white on red. She found the purse and picked it up after fumbling for the strap. It was still too dark to see clearly and she still didn't feel like searching for the light. She didn't want to see that little prison she had shut herself in.

She rummaged inside the purse for her cell phone. Had there been light she would have instantly recognized its 24 karat gold shell amongst all the other expensive little trinkets. She finally wrapped her fingers around the cold metal and lifted the phone out of the purse. She flipped it open and the light from the screen flooded the space.

She needed someone. Anyone. Actually she knew exactly who she would contact. Her secretary, personal assistant, and friend. She thumbed through the directory and found her entry, then dialed.

After a few short rings she heard the friendly yet tired voice. Helga knew she was in her husband's arms sleeping peacefully. She reminded herself to be apologetic, something that didn't come easy, but all the same...

"Moshi moshi?" Came Phoebe's tired but comforting voice.

"Phoebs… Hey… I'm sorry to bother you this late at night…"

"It's two in the morning." Phoebe added.

Helga nearly dropped the phone as a sinking feeling hit her stomach. Two in the morning? It happened shortly after she got to the club, at ten! She had been in that closet for almost four hours! She hugged her legs closer and fought to keep the phone from shaking against her ear. "Phoebe. I need help. Now. I'm, in a janitor closet at this place called TranceFixed…" she took a deep, sharp breath. "I have the door locked. Someone tried to…" she trailed off. She felt so embarrassed.

Phoebe finished the sentence in her mind. "Oh my god Helga! I'll, I'll be right there okay. Don't leave the closet."

"Ph-phoebe?"

"Yes?"

Helga looked around again at the dark void. Light from her cell phone danced off of shiny objects on the shelves as she turned her head. In between those points of blue and white light, she could see the ghost of Arnold as he stared down into her prison. She could see her face reflecting off his eyes before he closed them and shook his head, the frown across his lips registered her betrayal, and tears fell from Helga's bloodshot and drugged eyes.

"Helga?"

"Y-Yes-um. Come alone. Don't bring Gerald."

There was the sound of a pause in the silence, and then she could hear Phoebe's soothing mousy voice again. "Okay. Don't you move. Stay there. Okay?" Helga could only nod, and even though Phoebe most likely couldn't tell she had done so, responded. "I love you girl."

The phone brightened and Helga looked at the display, and the ominous phrase '_call ended'_ appeared under Phoebe Jane Johansen's name.

Helga closed the phone, and the world around her seemed darker again. The music invaded the air again. She could hear whoops and cheers as the DJ spun another record, and the sound of her solid gold cell phone slamming and skidding against the cement floor beside her after being unceremoniously dropped from her shaking hand.

Sitting there in the darkness, naked in a tiny red cocktail dress, Helga G. Pataki sat under the disappointed glare of Arnold's ghost as the last of the date rape drug slithered its way out of her consciousness. She huddled closer to herself with her arms around her bare knees. She placed her head down against her kneecaps like a frightened little girl in the corner of an unfamiliar world.

And she cried.

XXX

National Sexual Assault Hotline – 1-800-656-HOPE

XXX

I debated with myself on if I should post this as is or if I should expand upon it. I even considered not posting it at all. This chapter in this form existed on my hard drive for about a year. I finally decided to bite the bullet and post it, knowing full well that I may get chastised for it. I didn't add any additional scenes because I want this one to stand out.

I'm not party to the idea of glorifying the subject of rape, and when I set about writing this, that was never my intention, hence the reason I'm still uneasy about releasing this chapter.

If you are offended by this chapter then I understand. Please try to understand, however, that I am only using the subject of rape as a plot device here. I am a writer, and writers use plot devices to tell a story, and rape is a part of reality, unfortunately.

My personal belief is that no woman ever, regardless of circumstance, is "asking for it." Rape is an abberration in humanity and those men who perpetuate it on women are not real men. They are animals and cowards who deserve nothing less than to have their balls chopped off, thrown in a jar of gasoline, and incinerated while they watch.


	4. Surreality

Single Scars

a Hey Arnold fanfic series by Pyrex Shards

WARNING: This series of stories is not for the faint of heart. It can and will be considered disturbing. If the darker side of the human condition is not something you like to read about, please do not read this fanfic series. This story is being told asynchronously due to poetic license.

X X X

"Surreality"

X X X

Being the senior administrative assistant to Helga Geraldine Pataki, the fiery president and CEO of Pataki Corporation, was tough work. That wasn't a bad thing necessarily. For Phoebe it was a dream job. Some people would look at a person with Phoebe's IQ and wonder why she'd even settle for taking crap from the most infamous boss in the whole United States, let alone the world. Those same people would tell her that her college education was going to waste.

Friendship however, can bring with it a different kind of logic. Phoebe looked out over the mid deck of the expansive parking garage with a neutral expression on her matured Japanese face. She was leaning against the driver side door of her little blue and very modest Honda Civic that was parked in a parking space marked "Reserved for Phoebe Johansen." The color of the car was almost like her navy blue business suit with matching skirt. She looked down to check her white dress shirt to make sure all the buttons were straight, and then looked out again over the menagerie of parked cars in the garage.

It was a friendship that spanned approximately two decades. That friendship now sported a paycheck with some very well placed zeros. But, it was still a friendship that she wouldn't give up for anything. Even Gerald, her husband, couldn't budge it. It was almost as if marriage to Phoebe meant being close to Helga, for it was, and Gerald must have loved Phoebe a lot, for he was tolerating Phoebe's career choice so well. Occasionally she could hear grumbles under her Husband's breath when Phoebe would be called into the office late at night to help Helga with some kind of work related activity; doubly so when they were in the midst of making love, but he never outwardly groaned.

It was a good thing too, because sometimes in her weaker moments she'd do the grumbling for both of them. The coffee in her right hand wasn't for her. The tall Styrofoam cup emblazoned with a green corporate logo of Starbucks smelled good in the early morning air, even in the confines of a clean but still dank parking garage. But she wouldn't take one sip. The fresh and piping hot bagel in her other hand looked just as appetizing, having been expertly cut in two and then cemented together with wild onion cream cheese. Both smelled so good together as their aroma danced and tantalized her nose.

But she would have none of it. That didn't stop her, as mentioned before, from groaning in frustration. For on Monday mornings her boss, her friend, her confidant of two long and productive decades, was always late for work…

"Where the hell is she?" Phoebe cursed under her breath, having picked up a few choice curse words from her husband over the years. She checked her small gold watch on her left wrist. Being around Helga didn't help either. She let herself skip over some of Helga's more fabulous French expletives. But a little "damn it all to hell," didn't hurt occasionally, when followed with the name of her boss, as usually happened on Monday morning's when Helga's black Porsche rounded a corner in the parking garage going well over the posted five mile per hour speed limit.

The morning routine on Monday's started out like this:

Helga's Porsche pulled into the parking space right in front of Phoebe, the space marked Reserved for Helga Pataki. Phoebe had learned not to flinch at how close the bumper got. She could even feel the heat from the over-revved engine. She trusted Helga not to cut her legs off. She wouldn't ride with Helga anywhere, but that was another story entirely. She could hear the transmission being shifted into park and the click of the parking brake while the engine went to sleep.

The car shifted slightly as Helga simultaneously exited her black car and said "Hiya Phoebs!" rather energetically.

As if on cue Phoebe could feel her lips curve into a genuine smile as she stood up straight and spoke a proper "Ohayo gozaimasu Helga," having already forgotten her boss' usual Monday tardiness. It was always like that. Upon seeing those youthful blue eyes of her best friend, framed by very pretty blonde hair, how could Phoebe not want to stay close to this woman, let alone be there for her even as a career?

Helga shut the car door and rounded around the back of the car to approach Phoebe, who offered her the contents of her hands. "The usual?" She watched with a smile as Helga picked the coffee first, and took a tentative and very light sip, then took the bagel from Phoebe's other hand all the while giving Phoebe an appreciative smile.

"Sorry I'm late." Helga took a bite of the bagel while taking care not to get any crumbs on her gray suit or her pink tie, while Phoebe straightened up her navy blue skirt.

Phoebe then chuckled and said "It's okay Helga." Though it was a half lie, Phoebe couldn't call Helga an unappreciative boss. She waited patiently for Phoebe to adjust her dress, then her glasses, and the both of them walked to the elevator.

"So what's on tap for today?" Helga asked, taking another sip of her coffee.

"Checking." Phoebe said in a sing song voice, reached for her light blue Pataki P42s smart phone, unlocked it, and then started to thumb through the calendar. "You have a meeting with Anderson Equity at Nine."

"The Anderson Equity meeting?" Helga exclaimed as if she had forgotten. Then she said with a low voice. "I'm not ready for it. I still have to work the numbers. Damnit!" Phoebe could hear her growl. The meeting with Anderson Equity was Helga's top priority for the day, as stated on Phoebe's phone with a little exclamation mark as she thumbed through the schedule whilst waiting in line at Starbucks. They were representatives from an equity firm in New York, executives to be exact, who flew out specifically to meet with the CEO of Pataki Corporation. Helga had her eyes set on a few properties that the firm had, and they were willing to negotiate options.

Phoebe smiled. This wasn't exactly the worst situation to be in. Just bump the meeting forward by thirty minutes, Helga could pour over the information beforehand and then knock them dead with her hard-ass customer shtick, only thirty minutes later than planned. She entered a few commands into her phone. "I'm bumping that meeting up to nine-thirty."

Helga smiled. "What would I do without you Phoebs? Wait…" Helga added with a goofy grin as they approached the elevator and she pressed the up button. "Don't answer that."

Phoebe chuckled at Helga's form of gratitude. It was plenty enough for her. She resumed looking at the schedule. The door to the elevator opened and the duo stepped in. "After that you have a meeting with accounts payable at eleven for an hour. Then lunch…" Phoebe looked up. "I'm thinking of this little sandwich place Gerald is raving about called Alonti's."

"It's a date." Helga replied. "After that?"

Phoebe thumbed the blackberry again. "A Two Thirty conference call with Verizon." Helga chuckled and shook her head. Phoebe looked up at Helga. "What?"

Helga pressed her index finger and thumb together in front of Phoebe's face for emphasis "I'm, THIS, close to buying them out."

"Knock 'em dead Helga." Phoebe chuckled back.

"Don't worry, I will."

The elevator bell chimed and the door swooshed open, allowing the duo access to the building lobby. Helga stepped out first, with Phoebe following suit. The Pataki corporate Headquarters was by no means the most impressive building in the world. On the outside it was all glass. On the inside was an open air atrium that went up seven stories to a glass skylight that let the noonday sun shine down throughout the glass on the inside of the building and reflected off the chrome railing of each floor balcony. It was pretty nice for what was a common business building and was suitable for the headquarters of an *emerging* business empire.

Phoebe put her blackberry away. "After that you're free for the rest of the day."

"Slow Monday." Helga stated matter-of-factly as she flashed her ID card for the turnstile that would let her at the inner elevators to the highest floor. Phoebe followed behind and did the same. The turnstile beeped and in an unmistakable noise of a quick moving motor, let her through.

"Relish it." She replied as she adjusted her black hair, which was done up in a conservative bun with two blue French hair sticks.

The small talk continued as Helga stepped into the elevator and Phoebe followed suit. "This building is getting small" her boss admitted, as she usually did on Monday mornings, more so now than in the past. Phoebe nodded politely.

Tucked neatly in a corner of Helga's office were the plans for what would become Hillwood's tallest tower. A fifty story glass structure aptly named Pataki Tower. It was a neat model with a cool cross section of each floor that rose high above less accurately rendered models of the surrounding buildings. At age twenty-six, and Helga was already building a fifty story monument to her own empire. What Helga didn't see at that moment, was that if she turned around, she would see a very perceptible frown from on her Assistant's, her friend's, face.

Phoebe didn't like the new tower, for several reasons.

It wasn't that Helga didn't need the space. She did. She already had satellite offices throughout Hillwood just to fill the capacity her business needed. Those buildings needed to close down. The empress had no direct control over those buildings simply because her imposing presence couldn't be felt, and that needed to come to a halt fast. She needed the entire business under one very tall roof. The last thing she needed was for some fraud to come out of one of those offices, and her ass would be on the line due to regulations stating as much. She had a business need, definitely.

It wasn't business, it was motive. Phoebe doubted her best friend's motive for the structure. She could just as easily build a campus outside of Hillwood's metro area. Or, she could purchase the old FTi headquarters outside of town. For Pataki Tower to be built, the very building from which Helga laid the groundwork of her company would have to be demolished. She'd be building right where Big Bob's Beepers used to stand. The building itself was abandoned for about four years, only holding some old paperwork and the records of her father's former business ventures, that she had to keep around for tax purposes.

Was it vengeance that drove her to do this? Phoebe had a sneaking suspicion it was. Perhaps Helga was trying to erase her father from her mind?

In order to build the tower, Helga needed a second building to warehouse a lot of assets that couldn't come over from the other offices. To resolve that problem, Helga decided to build an honest to god warehouse. It wasn't the fact that she was building the warehouse, but, just like the deliberate nature of where she was going to build Pataki Tower, so to was the planned location of the warehouse.

It was near Vine Street. To be more precise, the exact block where her childhood home stood. Phoebe's frown deepened. Of all the lowest things to do; Helga was fighting in court to get some historic registrations overturned so she could build a warehouse right in the midst of Hillwood's most historic district. She was basing her argument on a technicality that during the war with all that crap concerning tomatoes, her house and the block that it stood on hadn't even been built.

The worst part was she was fighting none other than Arnold Shortman, who was mounting a defense just like in that summer years ago when they all rallied against Sheck, though this time in a court of law.

Helga was so desperate to erase her childhood, she was going to level an entire city block full of housing and residents to do so. She wouldn't even let Arnold stand in her way. Not that it mattered much to her. Arnold was married to Lila. The fact that Arnold didn't seem to matter anymore, that Helga would willingly re-enact what Sheck tried to do, made Phoebe feel cold sometimes, like what she felt then when the elevator chimed and the door opened to the seventh floor, the executive offices.

Across from the elevator, and the railing surrounding the atrium and the drop to the floors below, sat the executive board room. Inside the darkened space she could see the logo of Pataki Corporation outlined in dimmed white light. It all seemed cold, and icy proper. It seemed posh and expensive. It seemed corporate, it seemed dead.

Sometimes Phoebe had to wonder if that sweetness inside of Helga was dead just like the unadorned walls of this office. That all she saw, walking along day by day was a zombie monster that called herself Phoebe's friend, confidant, and boss. That all she was on the outside was a businesswoman in a clean and sharp business suit, with prim hair and proper fingernails, ready for the next hostile takeover that came her way. Was being cold and dead on the inside, forgotten and rotted away, never to return, the price of her success? Sometimes Phoebe could swear, at the worst times, that the stature of Helga's tall frame was due to the rigor mortis of the little girl that died when Helga stood up at the altar of her father's funeral, and read a eulogy in masked sarcasm.

This entire building, this corporation and all its trappings, was so unlike the poetess she knew in her youth; the passionate girl with the pink ribbon in her hair. The girl who's heart bled for Arnold. The innocent and caring feminine creature inside who may have died along with her father, never knowing what it was like to be held by the one she loved and dedicated her being too.

The implications were staggering to Phoebe as they rounded a corner. It meant that all of Helga's niceties towards her were that of a mere administrative assistant. That meant Phoebe was a damned good administrative assistant, but not a friend; not a confidant. Not someone you'd have a sleepover with or tell your darkest secrets to when drunk at two in the morning.

Not someone who would comfort you in your times of sadness and laugh with you at times of absurdity.

As they approached the CEO's office, Phoebe had to put that idle thinking out of her mind. She had a job to do. Helga needed her. Phoebe was an anchor to the most successful woman in the world, easily the most well known, and she had to be that glue. She had things to do, papers to file, copies to make, a board room to prepare, and it all had to be done in an hour to eight hours depending upon the task. She couldn't stop now.

Helga unlocked the door to her office while Phoebe walked over to her own desk against the wall adjacent the door. It was actually pretty neat. One of Helga's personal requests was that she could see Phoebe from her own desk. The door always stayed open so that if something funny happened during the course of the day they could both share in the joke or whatever it was that was so funny, barring the occasional closed door meeting of course. It was sweet and something a best friend would totally do. But Phoebe still had her doubts.

Phoebe picked up her clipboard after powering up her computer and taking a long look at the only picture on her desk, a blue-framed picture from her wedding, of her feeding wedding cake to her husband.

She then walked the short distance to the expansive CEO's office. To say Helga had a penchant for business Feng Shui was an understatement. At the center of the office sat an impressive glass desk with a brushed stainless steel support frame and legs. It had no drawers but it did have a few cables hanging off of it where Helga could plug in her laptop. All she really had on the desk was her laptop and her desk phone.

Behind where she sat in her plush black leather chair, sat a wall of windows from floor to ceiling, and the city of Hillwood beyond that. Along the walls of her office were various framed and authentic pieces of artwork. There was a bookshelf against one wall that had some smallish awards and trophies along with a modest collection of books.

In one corner near the windows sat a very plain table, on-top of which was the model of the future Pataki Tower. The morning sun shone through the model and Phoebe was sure Helga placed the model there for that very same and impressive effect.

The entire space was hideously expansive, had a lot of free space, but it spoke of the importance of its twenty-six year old occupant. This was Helga's empire, and you knew it as soon as you saw one picture hanging on the far wall. It was a cover of Fortune magazine, with Helga leaning against her desk, arms folded, staring at the camera with a proper but very serious smile. Her hair had been done up that day into layers of wavy blonde, and she wore a deep red business suit that accentuated her hourglass conservatively, yet yelled '_I am woman!_' The caption read "Helga Pataki… Meet the World's Youngest CEO… and how she did it."

There was one last piece of furniture, a telescope on a tripod, obviously aimed at their old neighborhood; it spoke of loneliness and longing. It was easily the most poignant counter balance to the statement that Helga's office made, and only Phoebe recognized it as such. She knew that in some way Helga still had it hard for Arnold, big time. Helga couldn't hide that from Phoebe. She never could.

Phoebe took her place on one of two plain leather chairs sitting in front of Helga's desk. She looked at her clipboard as Helga's fingers clacked away silently at the keyboard of her laptop. "The spreadsheets for Anderson Equity are on your home drive under a folder of the same name. I also took the liberty sanitizing some of the pivot tables for you. They were a mess." Phoebe stated while writing some notes on her clipboard.

Helga didn't look up from her laptop. "I see that. Thank you." She acknowledged and Phoebe smiled.

"I see that two people are coming. Do they prefer Coke or Pepsi?"

Helga looked up at Phoebe and smiled. "They'll drink Coke and they'll like it."

Phoebe wrote more information down in her clipboard as the duo prepared for the day. It was a known fact that Helga hated salesmen, more so than she hated her late father, who had been a salesman himself. She preferred to boss them around, and she was good at it to. So she had the opportunity to make some executive type salesmen sweat, and she knew how to do it.

More than likely they'd be men, as had happened before they'd be sexist, so they'd expect Helga to be a pushover because, well, she was a woman. They'd try to appeal to her femininity, and they'd fall flat as soon as Helga folded her arms in front of them, stole their minds within her blue eyes, and proceeded to make counter-offers. True, Helga wanted what they had to offer. At least one firm they were selling had some very interesting intellectual property in the field of fiber optics, and if Helga was going to take advantage of such a lucrative field, she needed that, and a lot of it.

"By the way." Helga started, snapping Phoebe out of her thoughts.

"Hmm?" Phoebe hummed.

Helga tapped her fingers on the plastic of the laptop. "I want you to sit in on this meeting."

Phoebe's held in her breath for a moment as she pondered the request. Helga never wanted Phoebe in any of those meetings. She didn't know why, perhaps it was some protectiveness. But now she didn't know. "May I ask why?"

Helga smiled. "Sure." She closed her eyes and leaned back, then opened them and pressed her fingertips together. "I did a little research on the executives of Anderson Equity. Turns out a few years ago these boys were in a lawsuit, some sort of sexual harassment thing involving one of the companies they own and a female employee."

Phoebe shook her head. "I don't understand."

"Well…" Helga drew out her breath. "It might help if we turn up the estrogen in the room. They're obviously sexist pigs. This'll make them distracted. Will you do it?"

This, Phoebe wasn't prepared for. Nevertheless, she blushed at the idea. That blush then turned into a smile. Helga was known in the business world as ruthless. She was within the law, all on the up and up, but that didn't mean she had no command of the rulebook. Almost immediately after inheriting her Father's business, she turned the entire company known as Big Bob's Beepers upside down. With the studiousness of a neurosurgeon welding a scalpel like a samurai sword, Helga had single handedly dissected her late-fathers business.

Then while everyone was scratching their heads, and while the cell phone pushers still minded the storefront, the blonde terror of Hillwood reshaped Big Bob's Beepers into Pataki Wireless. But not only had she re-organized a fledgling cell phone store chain into a squeaky clean operation where the only thing peculiar about the fine print was how honest it was, she had purposely laid the foundation for the beginnings of a corporation. It was elegant. It was simple in its execution. She had done all this with no formal business training. And as Helga Geraldine Pataki unleashed her business skills upon the world, no one could deny the fact that Helga could use her own brand of psychology on any CEO or entrepreneur she met, and take over their company in the blink of an eye…

…Even if that meant bringing her more feminine properties to bear, subtly of course. And if Phoebe had to be a part of that equation to help her best friend, she knew what the answer was. Plus, the prospect of watching Helga work her particular brand of magic was enticing enough.

"Okay. I'll do it." Phoebe said simply.

"Great! You're the best Phoebs!"

"I'm not done yet. I'll do it, but for a price…"

This caused Helga to look up from her laptop and arch an eyebrow playfully at her assistant. "Oh? And what do you have in mind Mrs. Johansen."

"Dinner for two at Harold's Steakhouse on the fifteenth at eight pm."

Helga pondered for a second then her eyes lit up. "Oh, your anniversary!"

Phoebe couldn't help but grin like a fool that Helga had remembered something like that.

"You drive a hard bargain but…" Helga rested her chin in the palm of her hand as she pretended to size Phoebe up with a discerning frown. Then she smiled, and Phoebe knew instantly.

"Oh thank you thank you thank you! Arigatou Helga!" Phoebe stood up from her chair, and bowed.

"I'll personally call Harold this afternoon. Don't let me forget."

"Not letting!" Phoebe said gleefully as she walked out the office and towards her desk. Behind her, Helga simply shook her head and grinned.

Once at her desk, Phoebe sat down and gracefully swiveled her chair around to face her computer. Keys clacked as she logged in while glancing at the clock sitting beside the screen, a little Hello Kitty clock that Helga had bought for her on her birthday, last year. The clock on the tummy of the pudgy little cartoon cat read eight fifty six. So they had roughly thirty minutes until the meeting. Phoebe sighed. No doubt about it, this was going to be an interesting morning.

She had barely logged in and was about to read her e-mail when the phone rang. Phoebe put on her small gray wireless headset and pressed the hands-free button on the desk phone, which lit red, and she answered "Pataki Corporation, Helga Pataki's office, how my I help you?"

"_Hey baby."_ Came Gerald's deeply masculine voice over the headpiece

Phoebe looked over at the display on the phone to see that her husband was on his cell phone. She smiled. "Gerald, darling, thanks for calling but I'm really busy right now." There was silence on the other end of the line, and Phoebe's smile faded when she realized Gerald's voice had an airy tone to it, and his breathing seemed erratic, like something was weighing heavily on her husband's mind. "Is something wrong?"

"…_Have you, checked the news this morning?"_ Gerald's voice seemed on the verge of cracking.

"Um… No… I…" Phoebe's voice trailed off as she double-clicked the web browser link for the Hillwood Gazette on her computer, then looked up into Helga's office to see the relatively young CEO fast at work on her research for the coming meeting. She looked back down at the screen, and whatever she was thinking of saying died in her throat as she saw the page. The headline at the top of the page, in bold ominous letters, read:

_**Fatal Gang Shooting Leaves One Man Dad, Suspects At Large**_

But she couldn't read the text of the article. Her eyes wouldn't let her. Instead, they were transfixed on the image underneath and to the right of the headline, of a young blond man with an unmistakably oblong shaped head, an unruly mop of hair, a pleasant smile, a goatee, and friendly forest green eyes. In the picture he was at the soup kitchen in the old neighborhood, doing what he did best, helping others. It was juxtaposed against an unmistakable and horribly lighted crime scene with police tape and police cars.

"_Phoebe Baby he's dead. Arnold's…._" Phoebe could only hear Gerald's words as he spoke them, not comprehend them as a horrid feeling of bile started to clog up her stomach and the image she saw threatened to paralyze her body. Gerald wasn't one to cry, but she could tell. She quickly looked up and at her boss, still engrossed in the numbers of the coming meeting. She glanced at the clock. Twenty five minutes until the meeting. Time was speeding up, and yet it was slowing down. Phoebe minimized the browser window in a daze and stood up from her seat while her husband's voice finally cracked over the phone. He let out a long and gasping breath.

She walked quietly away from her desk, and her boss, and the image on her computer screen. Every footstep seemed an eternity, everything in the surroundings seemed to tunnel out as the world around Phoebe Johansen seemed to be only two feet around her. She finally found the words to speak as she walked the long white hallway and ducked into an empty office to lean against the wall beside the doorway. "Oh my god." She said, and then covered her mouth to stifle a squeak. Tears came to her eyes. She could see outside the office, at the bright downtown Hillwood skyline. A helicopter dotted the sky and birds flew by overhead. The scene outside and the comforting presence of her Husband over the cold headpiece were the only two things assuring her the world hadn't stopped. "What happened?" She asked meekly.

There was a pause over the phone. "_I think he was on his way home, and he, was stopped at an intersection. And I think he. He. His car window was up but." _Gerald trailed off as his voice cracked again, and Phoebe wanted to let her legs give out from under her. She wanted to lean against the wall and sit there in that vacant office and just listen to her husband. No. She wanted to reach through the phone and hold him, let him bury his head in her neck and cry, so they could share each other's strength. Instead she settled for leaning into the corner as she looked through her thin blue glasses, and focused on the top of the hills that bracketed the city.

Arnold Phillip Shortman, the golden boy of PS 118, was a friend to everyone. He was loyal to a fault. He took care of friends and strangers alike. He was the one who took Charlie "Chocolate Boy" Goddard in to his own home while the poor kid was going through meth withdrawals, twice. Arnold did not give up on anyone, and everyone he had touched personally became his extended family, until practically all of Hillwood had heard of him, and loved him. Even Lila finally fell for him, and they had married. Over the years Lila's father had become wealthy, and Lila benefited from her fathers success. When Arnold married into that money, it didn't change him. He opened a soup kitchen in the most impoverished part of Hillwood, and he changed the shape of the City's charities instead.

And for all that love and generosity, he had been murdered in cold blood.

Phoebe felt rage and despair boiling over each other in her heart but she held it in. She had to be strong for her boss, and for her husband, who had just lost his best friend, and for her sanity. "I love you." She whispered over her headset.

"_I love you too._" Gerald's voice, no matter how unsteady, sought out her heart that moment. She felt warmth against the cold that she felt in the air. "_Please come home early. I need you._"

Phoebe nodded. "Yes… Yes I will."

A pause, then there was a click in her ear, followed by dead silence other than the low rush of the air conditioning ducts overhead. Phoebe pressed a button on her headset to hang up her phone, and then pulled the headset off her head.

Fresh tears welled up in her eyes. She closed them. "Calm down. Just calm down." She whispered to herself, and covered her eyes with her hand. "Helga needs you now. Oh God, please watch over her." Phoebe wasn't necessarily a devout Catholic like her step-mother and her father. Her inquisitive and observant nature sometimes haunted her with bouts of agnosticism, but right then she crossed herself to seal her short prayer for Helga's sanity.

Phoebe dried her eyes with her hands the best she could, and then walked to the doorway, but then stopped. How exactly was Helga going to handle this? Too be honest, she wasn't sure. Over the years that Helga had assumed her role as a businesswoman, a part of the countries corporate elite. Shrines to Arnold were replaced with expensive toys, fine china, and beachfront property. Where Arnold factored in, she had no idea. She was about to find out, and as Phoebe resumed her walk, into and then down the hallway towards her desk, she dreaded the answer, whatever it was.

If Helga still deeply loved Arnold, and that Telescope wasn't just for surveying the future grounds of Pataki Tower, then what was about to transpire would destroy her friend. But on the other hand, if Helga had forgotten all about Arnold, then-

"There you are Phoebs!" Helga's intense voice caused her assistant to jump.

Phoebe held a hand to her heart and gave Helga a fake sheepish smile. "You startled me." She took in Helga's demeanor; looking for signs. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, which meant she probably didn't know. She wouldn't know, until later, when Phoebe would put a hand over hers, to tell her over lunch. Helga never got her news until the evening anyway. This was for the good of Helga's company, this meeting, Phoebe told herself inwardly.

"Ready to show those bozos how to negotiate? Are you okay?" It was then that Helga noticed red in Phoebe's eyes. Phoebe wanted to shy away as Helga approached, as this secret tore at her soul and made her want to curl up on the floor and cry.

"No. Uh, I'm fine. Just a little nervous." Phoebe smiled again, this time a little wider. She chuckled and offered, "Let's, give 'em hell?"

"That's the spirit." Helga gently brushed Phoebe's shoulder with her fist. "Let's do this." Helga turned to go, but then stopped. "Oh, and Phoebe."

"Yes Helga?" Phoebe queried her friend. That's when she noticed there was something strange in the profile of Helga's blue eyes just before she had completely turned around again. There was something hidden in the curve of Helga's smile. She instantly knew it for what it was. Helga's eyes told volumes to Phoebe, she could never hide from her 'sister,' and that's when Phoebe knew.

She didn't even have to look beyond Helga, at the interior of Helga's office, and the open laptop sitting on the glass executive desk, with the front page of the Hillwood Gazette still showing that picture of Arnold underneath that horrid headline.

"It's going to be okay." Helga's voice was low, but strong as she turned around and walked away. Those words would forever haunt Phoebe.

Those moments leading up to the meeting were a blur. Not another word was spoken between the two. Helga went down to the lobby in order to meet their guests, and Phoebe hurried along with preparations for the meeting. She opened the doors to the boardroom and turned on the lights. They weren't going to need the projector system so she hit the lights immediately over the meeting table as well, and bathed the meeting room in bright fluorescent light.

A local café had already dropped off a plate of cookies and brownies, so she sat those out, along with four cans of coke, a small bucket of ice, cups, napkins, and small plates along a table off to the side. They probably wouldn't even consume anything, and she'd end up taking the soda and the cookie plate down to the mailroom after the meeting, at Helga's insistence.

As she sat printouts of spreadsheets and legal contracts down in places on the meeting table, she immediately thought back to Arnold, and her hand stopped. She let her slender fingers rest on top of the white paper. Everything and anything around her seemed surreal at that moment, and Phoebe had to close her eyes in order to shut off the cruel world.

This all, was not happening. Arnold was not dead. Helga was not putting up a front. She'd attend this meeting. Pataki Corporation would have some more companies under its belt, they would go to Alonti's and sit and laugh while Helga ate pastrami on rye with extra mustard and she'd eat a salad.

Phoebe pulled out the chair and sat down at the meeting table. She looked up and her glasses reflected the light, then she looked down at the table at all the copies she had sat out. She studied them intently, then reached over to push one page on the setting next to her into alignment with the others so that everything looked tidy and primed for success.

'_Everything will be okay…'_

'_Everything will be okay…'_

'_Everything will be okay…'_

She repeated that over and over again in her head as Helga walked in with two men in tow whom she had never seen before. Helga had an odd smile on her face. The man behind her and to her right was saying something about cash flow and being impressed with Pataki Corporation. He was a taller, much older man with a bald spot and a blue tie. The man next to him had slicked back hair, was slightly shorter, and was trying to avert his eyes from Helga's hips.

Helga's eyes settled on Phoebe, who stood up to greet the two men. "I would like you to meet my assistant, Phoebe Johansen."

"This is David Cooper, CEO of Anderson Equity." David, the tall balding man, stepped forward and Phoebe shook his hand.

"Pleased to meet you." Phoebe smiled as best she could while she tried to keep her composure up.

"Same here." David responded. He seemed professional enough to be a credible CEO. Lord only knew Phoebe had met enough of them, and David seemed no different. Professional through and through. All business but with a disarming smile.

"And this is Paul Mercer, their CFO." Helga nodded to the other, man, with mock excitement, and Phoebe instantly knew why. He was the douchebag who was checking out Helga's hips. Why any man would think a woman wouldn't notice such a thing was a mystery. He stepped forward and when phoebe shook his hand she remained silent, and watched in hidden revulsion how his eyes seemed to both undress her and have sex with her at the same time.

"The pleasure's all mine." His voice seemed professional but Phoebe could see behind it. She made it a point to turn her hand when he released it so that he could see the elegant wedding ring on her finger. But Paul had already turned to look at Helga's body again.

Phoebe's lip curled downward when no one was looking, and she furrowed her eyebrows. '_So you have a thing for Asians and Blondes?' _She wanted to ask out of disgust. It would have made her day to see his reaction to that. But no, she couldn't. She would never do such a thing anyway. Helga was depending upon her to keep her composure. As the group took their seats, Phoebe looked across to her boss. The two of them locked stares for the briefest of moments and could see just how much Helga was trying to keep her wits up. There was a twitch in Helga's eye. It was faint but it was there. From this point forward it would be all an act with Helga leading the way. All they had left was composure at that very moment.

"So let's get started." Helga reached for the papers in front of her, and the meeting began.

Throughout the meeting Phoebe didn't have to do too much. She'd look down at her own papers when Helga or David would call attention to something. Paul seemed to take an active interest in Phoebe's chest, as Phoebe discovered when she leaned back in her chair and Paul, to her right, would seem to look out of the corner of his eye, and then down for the briefest moment.

Her attention drew inward again and again, at the smiling face of their murdered friend. And every time she'd think back to the precious and lovesick look on Helga's face when in Arnold's presence and she thought no one was looking. Phoebe looked up at her boss. It was hard to believe that girl with the pink ribbon and a bad temperament would grow up to own this building. 'And yet' as Helga had put it so many times before when Phoebe had overheard one of her many monologues to her love, they were one in the same.

Helga's shell disgusted Phoebe, it really did. Arnold had up and died and here she was pretending along with her boss, the one person who should be suffering a mental breakdown, like nothing out of the ordinary was taking place. She wanted to jump up and crawl across the table to Helga, shake her, and yell 'ARNOLD IS DEAD!' as loud as she possibly could.

Phoebe looked down at her hands in her lap, and realized she had been crushing the fingers of one hand within her other for the past half hour, so much that her fingernails hurt and her fingers were going numb. She let go and wrung her hands together quietly and slowly. Then she closed her hands into fists and stared intently at Helga.

She paid no attention to Helga's words, just at the fact that the cell phone princess was out in full force, on the verge of acquiring a new business. Another company, purchased on the open market, was about to be swallowed up whole by The Pataki Corporation. Helga's father would be proud.

Phoebe closed her eyes and pretended to nod at something Helga said. In her mind she remembered that moment years ago on the school bus when she had overheard Arnold telling Gerald that his dream about being married to Helga turned out to be 'not too bad,' and though it was vicarious living through Helga's fantasies, she knew, Phoebe could see Helga and Arnold, married, atop a lighthouse overlooking the ocean.

In fact she could smell the saltwater sometimes, and Arnold's cologne, as if it were her own dream, as she opened her eyes and looked over at the untouched sodas and plate of cookies.

"Allow me to reiterate." Phoebe's gaze snapped to Helga, who suddenly sounded very tense, very focused. "We are not interested in Intellicom's cellular phone tech. We are only interested in their fiber optics. Pataki Corporation already has a very diverse cellular portfolio after we purchased Nokia last year. Intellicom makes all their shit in China using knock-off parts. I know this because I've had my R&D team dissect their so-called phones."

David rapped his knuckles on the table and looked down, but he didn't respond. It was obvious this man would have stories to tell later about his first meeting with Helga Pataki. His partner, Paul, had a straight face. Phoebe realized she had already missed a lot of the discussion, so distracted was she in concern over Helga's mental state, so she could only watch as Helga stood up and started walking around the table.

"The Pataki Corporation P42 series is on target to take on the iPhone this Christmas; that much is certain. After that, the android and whatever that cute little toy OS is that Microsoft thinks is hot shit. I DO NOT NEED, gentlemen, another fly by night cellular phone manufacturing company right now. I don't need it and I don't want it, period."

Helga stopped pacing and placed her hands palms down on the table and looked at David square in the eyes. "But, Intellicom also has fiber technology that three years ago everyone in the tech sector was raving about. My R&D people tell me that it is still solid and the only thing rotten is the company that owns it, and Dave, may I call you Dave?"

Despite all that was going on, Phoebe had to suppress a giggle whenever Helga towered over the man who was easily twice her age. Helga was a crowd pleaser when she needed to be, and this moment was no exception. David Cooper, CEO of Anderson Equity, seemed to shrink in stature as Helga froze him in her gaze, practically towering over him. He nodded, and Helga grinned.

"Dave. I will pay you three quarters of your asking price, you can keep their cell phones and I don't know, give them away as Christmas gifts to parents who need teething toys for their kids. Lord knows IntelliOS is stable enough for that. Just remember to remove the batteries."

Dave looked at Paul, who looked at Dave in return. Paul held is hands out and nodded. The CEO of Anderson Equity cleared his throat and looked down at his paper. He then looked up and Helga backed away to cross her arms. "Anderson Equity has never broken up a property before sale, ever. But. Your deal is… Well…" David closed his eyes and smiled. "We'll do it. Miss Pataki. We'll agree to your terms."

'_They always do.'_ Phoebe sighed.

"Well then." Helga sat down besides David and nudged his shoulder with her fist. "There is a first time for everything, bucko."

He nodded, but didn't flinch. "That's true." Then with a nod to his business partner, the two of them stood up and Phoebe followed suit out of courtesy. But she stared at Helga intently when the blonde woman didn't stand up. David didn't seem to care or notice. He turned to Helga and offered her his hand. "I'll have my team contact you to arrange the proper paperwork. Congratulations miss Pataki."

Helga looked up at him, and Phoebe could plainly see the beginnings of a tear in Helga's eye. "You know what they say." The young CEO of Pataki Corporation shook David's hand. "Fiber is the future."

The man paused, obviously confused by the change in Helga's mood, but Phoebe knew exactly what was happening. That emotional performance, it had… "Phoebe, could you please show our guests to the receptionist so they can sign out," Helga looked at Phoebe's eyes. It was disturbing, looking at someone who was just about to lose any and all composure, but Phoebe could tell instantly. That act had robbed Helga of her walls, and her emotions where escaping into the room.

She nodded, and proceeded to the door. "This way gentlemen."

The two men followed suit. On their way to the elevator, Paul stopped looking at Phoebe's butt long enough to whisper into David's ear. "I hope you realize that bitch just eviscerated the reputation of Anderson Equity." Phoebe heard it, and closed her eyes as the elevator door opened. She stepped in and the pair followed.

The last thing she saw when the elevator doors closed was the silhouette of Helga sitting alone in the board room.

Once Phoebe had said goodbye to their visitors, she made her way back up to the seventh floor and wound her way around the railing overlooking the center atrium and the floors below. Once she had entered the board room, she gently pulled the door closed until it clicked, shutting out the rest of the office from the scene within, lowered the lighting so it wasn't as bright, and approached Helga.

Her boss was sitting there, hunched forward, with her elbows resting on the table. In her hands she held a gold locket, the chain still hung around her neck. Phoebe was sure she had seen it before, and was also sure it was that exact same locket. Its gold shimmered in the subdued light, and Helga's red and teary eyes were drawn to it like a moth to flame, entranced by it.

Phoebe walked around the conference table, and behind Helga. She could see a youthful picture of Arnold that the locket contained, and watched as Helga's thumb brushed lovingly against the gold plated heart. That particular edge had been worn silver under her thumb.

When Phoebe sat down next to Helga and placed her hand on her friend's shoulder, Helga looked over from the locket and right at Phoebe. The eyes that stared back at her didn't look cold and steely like those of a businesswoman with a ruthless and predator-like penchant for hostile takeovers and board meetings. They didn't look like someone who cared about her bottom line. She didn't have her father's furrowed brow.

Inside those blue eyes Phoebe saw helplessness of a scared child or the look of a frightened puppy dog that had lost its way. She saw despair and hopelessness, and longing, and loss.

"Arnold…" She heard Helga whisper his name, it was if she could hear the same young voice of Helga when they first met in preschool and the young blonde girl couldn't get her R's right, and they came out as W's_. 'Arnowd'_

Phoebe put her arms around Helga's warm and trembling shoulders, and the woman immediately lost it. She crushed herself into Phoebe's embrace, and let out long, dark, trembling sobs.

That's when Phoebe knew, really knew, with all the fiber of her being…

…That pigtailed, pink ribboned, and very passionate poetess, never died.

X X X

Author's Notes: After careful consideration I decided to drop the rating on Single Scars to T. I am beginning to hate the M rating with a passion, so my new policy is that no story of mine will ever be rated M unless it has explicit sex. I'm tired of being forced to rate something M in order to "think of the children." This is a harsh world we live in. So live within it or sign out.

Fascinating fact. The layout of the building mentioned here is loosly based upon the building where I work as a computer technical support underling. It has a really cool inner atrium that I just had to use, and an executive board room similar to the one mentioned. Only it's six floors instead of seven. I have to be a little unique of course. I know that doesn't help as a visual aid but in case any of my co-workers stumble upon this story, heaven forbid, they might say "oh yeah." Oh, and those turnstiles have tried to kill me more than once. They suck.

I am trying to get back into the swing of things. Some seriously stupid shit is going on right now. I was in a dark mood when I wrote parts of this. It happens in waves. Sometimes you're in a great mood and sometimes the world just sucks and you're stuck in the middle. I will spare you the details because I refuse to allow people to measure my problems. They are my own, and I am writing poetry in my spare time to come to terms with them.

Pink Ribbon will see work this week. Quite frankly it's pathetic how I have ignored that poor story. It isn't right of me to leave everyone in the dark like that. So I'm hoping to have a sufficiently long chapter out by next weekend. At least I am hoping that will be the case. I still have road trip to edit. Once Road Trip and Pink Ribbon is done I want to pick Bluebird back up.

I am just chock full of so many fanfic projects, and then there's Single Scars…

I have been questioned before by multiple people about how I seem to thrive on keeping Helga and Arnold apart. I know I do this, pretty damned consciously I might add. Single Scars is the pinnacle of this obsession, because I enjoy taking Helga apart again and again to see what makes her tick. She is too fascinating a character to just leave alone in pairing fic after pairing fic.

Single Scars is a hotbed of my most depraved ideas regarding how a fanfic should be written. It is meant to be experimental and raw. So for those of you who have made it this far and it is your first time reading this, I understand if you feel like taking a shower afterwards. Perhaps this is a way of me coping with things anonymously, sort of like what Hideki Anno was doing when he created the Anime titled Neon Genesis Evangelion. I dunno. Lord knows I put tons of personal experiences into these fanfics, but who doesn't.

So, be on the lookout this week or next weekend for another installment of Road Trip and Pink Ribbon, not necessarily in that order.

TTFN.

10/16/2011.


End file.
